Michael Moore just went off in defense of the Joker movie, and director Todd Phillips was grateful for the strong support from such an unlikely champion.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, following the Combine High School shootings and gun culture in the U.S. He's known for taking hard left stands on political and cultural issues. He also bashed American Sniper, but that's a different story.

Right now, he's taking a hard stand on Joker -- strongly in support of the movie, despite or actually because of the timely issues it addresses. Those issues have sparked fears of inciting violence, but Michael Moore's lengthy social media post implores people to watch the R-rated Joker and "take your teens."

Michael Moore started by mocking the idea that we should be afraid of Joker when there's so much real-life horror going on in the world.

Check out the full post, which includes thank you shout-outs to Joaquin Phoenix, Todd Phillips, and studio Warner Bros.:

Todd Phillips has been fielding criticism and support from all sides since Joker first screened in Venice. He was clearly pleased with Michael Moore's strong defense of the movie, adding this simple comment to Moore's post:

Todd Phillips doesn't seem to spend a ton of time on Instagram, but he has been promoting Joker, and officially opened it to world judgment on October 4:

He's getting a lot of positive feedback, and the reactions to Joker do seem to be either very positive or very negative. I guess that's why it ended up with a B+ CinemaScore -- some moviegoers probably gave it an A or A+ while others probably balanced with Cs or Ds. Or maybe after all the build-up, some fans really did just kinda think it was good but not a "masterpiece" or a travesty.

These Fake Joker Signs At Movie Theaters Are Getting Out Of Hand

Joker just had a record-breaking opening weekend for an October movie, so it's safe to say all the chatter out there served to help sell tickets. Keep up with everything still heading to the big screen this year with our 2019 movie release date schedule.

Michael Moore’s latest film, Where To Invade Next, made a poor start to its box office tenure when it was released earlier this month. The documentarian’s journey across the globe to borrow traits from different countries for America to use had Moore’s lowest opening per-theatre average ever. But, Michael Moore now has a helping hand from the Alamo Drafthouse, which has decided to “relax” its R-rating policy for the film. 

Rather than this being a blatant attempt to assist Where To Invade Next’s underwhelming box office start, it’s actually because the chain can’t believe it was ever rated R in the first place. Alamo Drafthouse, which has cinemas across 13 states, made this announcement on Friday, with their CEO Tim League releasing a statement, via Entertainment Weekly, that highlighted why they feel it is important to be more lenient regarding Where To Invade Next.

Tim League, who is also one of the distributors for Where To Invade Next, insisted that this decision wasn’t about selling tickets. Instead, it's about making sure that young American voters get to see the film’s message. 

Michael Moore had previously gone above and beyond in his attempt to get Where To Invade Next’s R-rating rescinded. He wanted it to receive a PG-13 so that it had a better chance to succeed at the box office. However, last year, he lost his appeal after he refused to make any cuts to the film, which the MPAA decreed were necessary. 

The MPAA decided to provide Where To Invade Next with an R-rating because of its use of “language, some violent images, drug use and brief graphic nudity.” But Tim League decided to elaborate on these offences, revealing that Where To Invade Next includes some use of swear words, students enjoying free college education, children eating healthy food in school, Italians on holiday, bloody violence in American prisons, and a naked German man leaving a hot tub. 

If you think you can stomach the above, you can go and check out Where To Invade Next now, as it’s currently in cinemas across the U.S. 

Documentarian Michael Moore is a polarizing figure. Over the course of his career he’s had run-ins with the gun lobby, auto manufacturers, the health care industry, an American president, and many others. And now he’s taking the Motion Picture Association of America, the governing body responsible for movie ratings, to task for how they rated his latest film.

Moore’s new movie, Where to Invade Next, was slapped with an R-rating by the MPAA, thus limiting its accessibility to audiences. The director of movies like Bowling for Columbine, Roger & Me, and Fahrenheit 9/11 plans to appeal the rating, and recently took to Twitter to talk about why the rating is especially suspect.

First he lays out what the MPAA cited his movie for.

And then Moore gets into the specifics. The footage of the Eric Garner shooting, while graphic and disturbing to say the least, was also something that was on damn near every news cast across the country at the time, broadcast into millions of homes in the early evening.

The drug use mentioned involves Moore attempting to show a different approach to policing drugs than the current American method.

From the description, the nudity involved sounds on par with something you’d see in a National Geographic documentary.

And then, in true Michael Moore rabble-rousing form, he encourages younger viewers to take whatever steps necessary to see this movie.

None of that sounds particularly worthy of an R-rating, but this is far from the first time that one of Moore’s movies has been tagged with that restriction, despite the fact that way more explicit, far more violent movies are routinely released under a PG-13 flag (The Expendables 3 is a recent example that springs to mind). Fahrenheit 9/11 was given an R-rating, which Moore unsuccessfully appealed, and Roger Ebert famously slammed the MPAA for giving Bowling for Columbine the same tag.

Where to Invade Next isn’t the only documentary to run into such a ratings battle over the last few years. 2011’s Bully, about the epidemic of bullying in schools, was ultimately released into theaters unrated after it appealed its R-rating and was denied, thus limiting the number of theaters where the movie screened, as many chains won’t show unrated movies.

The MPAA has come under fire quite a bit recently for the seemingly arbitrary nature of many of their ratings decisions, especially when it comes the levels of graphic violence they allow as opposed minor amounts of sex and swearing, which they don’t. Moore has people from TWC-Radius, as well as the Alamo Drafthouse backing his appeal, and Where to Invade Next is slated for release on December 23.

Director Michael Moore has never been one to shy away from controversy. His documentaries have long gotten very divided responses - typically along political party lines - and he has become known as one to regularly and loudly speak his mind on cultural topics. This time around, the subject at hand is Clint Eastwood's new film American Sniper, and his opinion on the film is that its based-on-a-real-person lead character should not be celebrated for being a coward.

Moore's comments were made on his personal Twitter account, where he spoke to how snipers have affected his life and explained why they shouldn't be treated as heroes. The documentarian wrote,

Further emphasizing and clarifying the final line, a few hours later Moore added:

American Sniper tells the story of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper who served four tours during the Iraq War, and is known as the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history. He had 160 confirmed kills while serving overseas. In addition to covering Kyle's time in Iraq, Eastwood's film also chronicles his return how and adjustment to life after warfare.

This is hardly the first complaint that the internet has seen about the subject matter in American Sniper. Professional film critics have questioned in their reviews why Chris Kyle is a man who should get his own biopic. The Guardian's Lindy West wrote in her critique that Kyle was a "hate filled killer," and notes that he had described killing as "fun." This kind of furor has increased since last week, both due to American Sniper's release in theaters and Bradley Cooper's Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Either despite or because of the controversy, American Sniper has been a rocket at the box office. The film made more than $90 million in its opening weekend, which is unheard of for January and shattered the record set by Ride Along last year (which made a comparatively-paltry $41 million in its first three days). The movie is definitely proving to be a conversation starter, and it will be interesting to see how it winds up playing in the days leading up to the Academy Awards.

Parents of the children killed during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting last December have started a petition in an effort to get the state of Connecticut to pass legislature that will keep sensitive information surrounding the horrific ordeal from the public. The petition directly references Michael Moore "and other hoaxers" looking to publish photos and audio from the tragedy to promote their own agenda.

Here's part of the message posted from three victims' parents in their Change.Org petition:

THR says Michael Moore has argued that the leaking of gruesome photos and 911 calls could help sway public opinion on gun-law reform. But the parents of the children who were tragically affected by the shooting at the elementary school do not want the images and audio used for political purposes.

The bill they're looking to get passed would prevent the release of any images, video recordings or other depictions of the victims without the permission of immediate family of said victims. It's not difficult to understand why they might feel this way, in the wake of such a tragedy. Moore may believe his intentions are in the right place and some who support gun legislation probably agree, but it's also reasonable that parents and family members of the victims might not want images of their loved ones exploited for any purpose.

On Moore's side of this, THR points to a blog entry written by the documentary filmmaker in March, which discusses the use of graphic imagery, particularly in the 50s and 60s, to bring certain horrific crimes to light. He goes on to discuss the six and seven-year-olds who were shot multiple times at Sandy Hook Elementary School and what kind of physical damage that would do to a child. Here's part of his blog entry...

Is Moore right? It's certainly debatable. Imagery can be a powerful thing. Like the old adage says, a picture's worth a thousand words. But is it really fair to equate the images of these slaughtered children with the photos released that brought to light the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam - at least, in terms of how they might affect the public's awareness of the issue? There's probably a whole debate that could be made regarding the public's access to and awareness of world events now by comparison to decades ago - or pretty much any time before the internet, really.

And the other question, is whether or not these images would be particularly effective in changing people's minds on the issue of gun control, at least, any more than the kind of graphic images some activists use to argue against abortion. Do those posters change people's minds? Or are they just shocking imagery directed at an emotional issue, meant for shock value?

Regardless of the possible effectiveness of the photos, should the parents have the right to keep them from going public? If you think so, sign the petition HERE.

This poll is no longer available.

Movie finances are a tricky thing to get one's mind around. Because of so many contracts that have clauses involving deals from the back-end, it's not uncommon for studios to tweak their numbers a bit. For example, a report was leaked last year that said that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a film that made $934 million in worldwide box office receipts, was made at a loss of $167 million. People with back-end deals typically aren't very happy with this type of accounting, and now Michael Moore is suing over it.

THR reports that Moore has filed a lawsuit against Harvey and Bob Weinstein, saying that the brothers cheated him out of $2.7 million from his film Fahrenheit 9/11. According to the Oscar winning documentary filmmaker, the Weinsteins and "an affiliated entity called the Fellowship Adventure Group" were supposed to split the film's profit 50-50, but the producers moved the money around to hide it from him. The official charges by Moore are for "breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and constructive fraud." When asked for comment, the Weinsteins' lawyer, Bert Fields, responded,

While nobody can make any statements about the case until all of the evidence is out on the table, this will be an interesting one to watch. Moore and the Weinsteins have always had a solid relationship and this could, and probably will, do some damage. Perhaps we may be seeing another Moore documentary in the works as well.

Welcome back to FlixWorthy, your weekly guide to Netflix streaming. Yet again we're bringing you a handful of new or notable selections from Netflix's streaming catalogue. Some will be classics, some will be little-seen gems, some will be shows you might have missed, and some...some will be crap so awful they simply has to be seen to be believed. Here's what's FlixWorthy this week, kids.

Session 9

(2001, Rated R, 100 min.)

Session 9 is the most frightening movie I've ever seen, and one of the best psychological horror films ever made. Despite having earned a devoted following over the years, co-writer/director Brad Anderson's spare, claustrophobic mindfuck remains an underseen gem. The premise is as simple as can be: a small crew is hired to strip asbestos out of an abandoned psychiatric hospital. They've got one week, and all of them need the money the job will provide. As the week stretches on, they begin to delve into the asylum's dark past, and their own inner demons begin to rise to the surface. And that's absolutely all I'm going to tell you, because every moment of this movie should be savored unprepared, preferably alone in a pitch-black room. The cast, including David Caruso and Josh Lucas, give decent to excellent performances, but the real stars of the show are Anderson's masterful pacing and the haunted, decaying atmosphere of the asylum itself. This isn't a movie that relies on cheap jump scares or masked psychos. Session 9 simply drops you into a place corroded by the darkest impulses of the human soul and dares you to come away untouched.

Double-Feature It With:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

(1975, Rated R, 133 min., HD)

I couldn't help keeping the asylum theme rolling, but it should tell you something that I truly believe One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest will be an uplifting refresher after surviving Session 9.

Capitalism: A Love Story

(2009, Rated R, 127 min.)

Love him or hate him, there's no question that Michael Moore's films tend to stir up plenty of controversy and conversation. Even though I might have agreed with some of the points he was making, he lost me back during the Fahrenheit 9/11/Bowling for Columbine period. Thankfully, he seems to have dialed back on the partisan smear films in recent years, instead making documentaries that focus on specific problems, such health care (Sicko) or the excess and abuses of, well, capitalism. Moore's film turns his usual mixture of humor and indignation on those who have profited the most from the economic crises that have made life miserable for the rest of us. This is the sort of stuff that made Moore's TV Nation so entertaining, because it's always fun to see an out-of-touch corporate fat cat on the receiving end of Moore's particular brand of harassment and annoyance. Granted, Moore is still as divisive a figure as pop culture has to offer, so your enjoyment will largely depend on whether you can watch footage of the man without wanting to punch him in the face.

Double-Feature It With:

Maxed Out

(2006, Not Rated, 87 min.)

Continuing the financial theme, Maxed Out takes a look at our culture's unhealthy relationship with debt -- individual, national, and systemic. The documentary is the first (and thus far only) full-length feature from director James D. Shurlock, but it earned generally favorable reviews across the board.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

(2009, Rated R, 152 min.)

Based on Stieg Larsson's best-selling novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo teams a journalist (Michael Nyqvist) with a young computer hacker (Noomi Rapace) to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy executive's niece 40 years earlier. The former CEO (Sven-Bertil Taube) believes the girl was murdered, and he wants the journalist to discover the truth. The film has an American remake in the works, with David Fincher rumored to be circling it, but here's your chance to see the first attempt at bringing Larsson's thriller to the big screen -- so long as you don't mind subtitles. Brian Holcomb reviewed the recent DVD release for us this very week, and you can check out his thoughts right here. If you like the cut of its jib, Larsson's novel has two follow-ups: The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which just got its American publication this past May.

Double-Feature It With...

M

(1931, Not Rated, 110 min.)

Fritz Lang's classic was the German director's first "talkie" movie, and gave Peter Lorre one of his most iconic roles as child-killer Hans Beckert.

The Damned United

(2008, Rated R, 97 min.)

If my Facebook news feed is to be believed, there's been some sort of big soccer event going on these past few weeks. I'm not sure what it all means, but John Oliver from The Daily Show has been very incensed. In the spirit of planetary unity involving a sport I couldn't care less about, I throw out this bone. Honestly, I'd be hard pressed to name a single memorable soccer movie off the top of my head -- wait: Bend It Like Beckham -- but I'm willing to recommend this one sight-unseen just based on the 96% fresh Top Critic Rating on RT and the presence of Peter Morgan's name in the credits. The British screenwriter's resume over the past five years boasts a damned impressive pedigree (The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, Frost/Nixon), and even his weakest recent credit still had its moments (The Other Boleyn Girl). If Peter Morgan felt compelled to write a soccer drama, there's a good chance it's a soccer drama worth watching. But I still refuse to call it "football."

Double-Feature It With:

Fever Pitch

(1997, Rated R, 102 min.)

No, this isn't the eminently forgettable 2005 American version that replaced soccer with baseball and Colin Firth with Jimmy Fallon. I don't need to tell you how lopsided that particular trade was. While both versions were based on lad-lit legend Nick Hornby's autobiographical book, Hornby actually wrote the screenplay for this decade-earlier British version.

Surrogates

(2009, Rated PG-13, 89 min.)

File this one under "Promising Concept; Mediocre Execution." Terminator: Salvation screenwriters Michael Ferris and John Brancato spin this tale of a near-future world where the bulk of mankind live out their lives via robotic versions of themselves. Without the dangers of personal risk, people are free to live out any fantasy they can imagine: skydiving without fear of death, casual sex without fear of disease. But when two people are killed via feedback loop when their surrogates are attacked, FBI Agent Greer (Bruce Willis) is called in to solve a pair of murders in a world where the crime has become virtually unheard of. Things only get worse when Greer's surrogate is destroyed, forcing him to face the real world for the first time in years. Surrogates is a sort of spiritual companion piece to Avatar, with both examining the relationship between our physical form and our inner selves, and like Blade Runner, it uses a very particular future world as a frame for an old-fashioned detective story. Sadly, its promise is far greater than its execution, and while there are plenty of fascinating ideas in play, the script doesn't take them much beyond the usual, predictable action beats.

Double-Feature It With...

The Sixth Sense

(1999, Rated PG-13, 106 min.)

Remember when M. Night Shyamalan was being touted as the most promising new director of our generation? Remember when the presence of Bruce Willis was a guarantee of monster box-office success? Now we've got Surrogates and The Last Airbender. Sigh...

Last Chance Theater -- Expiring Soon!

Leverage: Season 1 (Expires 7/15)

Con men use their conning powers for good.

Scanners (Expires 7/16)

Psychics make people's heads 'splode.

Silent Movie (Expires 7/16)

...

To read the FlixWorthy archives, click here!

Is CBS afraid of Michael Moore? If you believe what the man behind numerous controversial documentaries said on his Twitter page, it appears the Eye shut him down after he criticized another network.

Moore is currently on tour to promote his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. Last week when appearing on Good Morning America, Moore brought up a conversation he had with some of the employees working backstage on the show and how they were freelancers who didn’t receive benefits, despite working long-term on the show. Now it looks as though the comment on the situation may have cost him an appearance on CBS’ Early Show. He posted the following on his Twitter page this morning:

Mediaite.com followed up on the story, posting that CBS stated Moore was never booked for the Early Show. According to Mediaite’s report though, it seems as though there were talks to book Moore on the show but they fell through after the Good Morning America appearance. Whether it’s due to what was said or other reasons, is unclear. Either way, it’s not surprising that Moore would jump to a conclusion. Right or wrong, the man has made a living representing the underdog and the publicity he may get for being rejected by CBS could turn out to give him even more attention than he would have gotten had he done the appearance. Somehow, I’m thinking he knows that, hence the tweet.

Michael Moore has been pretty fairly described as a liberal throughout his filmmaking career, given that he believes in things like gun control, universal healthcare, and pinning George W. Bush to the wall for all his misdeeds. But even if Barack Obama is a liberal just like him, Moore isn't planning on cutting him slack either.

According to THR's Risky Business Blog, Moore's new film Capitalism: A Love Story pretty much leaves Obama out of the saga of how the banking system nearly destroyed America, but depending on how things go in the next few years, Moore might be forced to turn his camera to the White House again.

For now, he has hope: "A lot of people on the left are upset. I'm not that upset yet. Clinton didn't do too much to turn this country around" (but) "my hope is that Obama will be able to stop that and take this country in a better direction." But he also has sharp words for the administration's financial minds, and warns that the Afghanistan war may very well become Obama's, not Bush's.

Honestly, I would expect Moore to make a movie about Obama, particularly if he lasts two terms in office. Liberals are excellent at criticizing their own, after all, and Moore's voice is one that always adds something to the conversation. Of course, it'd be nice if the Obama administration didn't get up to anything expose-worthy, but that hope goes beyond liberal bias into straight-up fantasy.